Mark Dougherty

Mark Dougherty holds the degree of Bachelor of Music from Queen’s Univeristy, Belfast where he studied Composition with Kevin Volans. Hewas Musical Director for Riverdance for four years from 2000 touring to Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and China.

His original works include Promised Land a new opera, (8 opera singers, 16-piece band, large chorus) commissioned by the Canterbury Festival in 2006, and The Belfast Carmen, a musical play set against the rehearsals of a production of Carmen, in Belfast, and featuring the Ulster Orchestra.

BBC commissions include: Dance for the Camera, Traditional Sounds, and The Homecoming – all featuring a variety of Irish and Scottish traditional instruments. Other works include Jazz Suites, TV themes and four full-scale musicals, including Rebellion, which traced the motivation behind Henry Joy McCracken leading The United irishmen during the 1798 uprising in Ireland.

He has worked with a number of artists including Van Morrison, Suzi Quztro, Johnny Mathis and Howard Keel, and has conducted and played many musicals including UK tours of West Side Story, 42nd Streetand Cabaret. More recently, he premiered On Eagle’s Wing, an epic tale of the Scots Irish, in the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.

He conducted the cast and orchestra of Les Miserables in a series of sell-out concerts across the UK, and the Ulster orchestra in several of his own works including With One Voice a seventy minute piece which featured a choir of one thousand.